Butler's Cinema Scene

Anton Yelchin, Billy Crudup

“RUDDERLESS” My rating: C (Opens Oct. 24 at the Tivoli)

105 minutes | MPAA rating: R

“Rudderless,” actor William H. Macy’s feature writing/directing debut, is a pretty good movie — until suddenly it isn’t.

I will not spoil the experience  (the movie does that all by itself) by giving away the late-second-act revelation that turns the picture inside out , making you indignantly realize that the filmmakers (Macy wrote the script with Jeff Robinson and Casey Twenter) have been less than forthright.

It’ll leave you feeling you’ve been had…and not in a enjoyable “Sixth Sense”/gotcha way.

It’s a grief movie.  Early on advertising exec Sam Manning discovers that his son Josh (we see the kid early on…he’s played by “Parenthood’s” Miles Heizer) was one of seven fatalities in a college campus shooting rampage.

Sam hits the skids: heavy drinking, beard growing, dropping out, moving permanently onto his sailboat (he’s already divorced from Josh’s mother, played by Felicity Huffman, aka Mrs. William H. Macy), and in general behaving like a seedy boor.

Then he gets a box of his late son’s belongings, among which are demo CDs and handwritten lyrics of Josh’s songs. The father is deeply moved and begins performing them on his acoustic guitar at a local bar’s open-mic night (Macy portrays the saloon owner).

Selena Gomez, Billy Crudup

The tunes make a big impression on Quentin (Anton Yelchin), a frizzy-haired young twentysomething who like a desperately friendly puppy begins stalking Sam, hoping to create a musical collaboration with this man twice his age.

Yes, folks, this is a let’s-put-together-a-band movie. And for a good stretch, as Sam and Quentin take in two other young players and build a local following, “Rudderless” (that’s what they call themselves, having rejected The Old Man and the Three) threatens to become a feel-good experience.  It’s almost like a minor-key variation on this summer’s little sleeper “Begin Again.”

Thing is, Sam neglects to mention that the songs — there are elements of Bon Iver in there, maybe a little Mumford and Sons and several other contemporary groups — were written by his late son. He lets everyone believe he did it all himself. And when the truth is revealed by Josh’s tormented girlfriend (Selena Gomez, not half bad), everything goes to hell.

Before that, though, there’s that nasty reveal that — for me, anyway — renders the rest of the movie almost unwatchable.

It’s not that the acting is bad, or that Macy can’t direct a scene, or that the technical aspects are inferior. It’s the gut-twisting unpleasantness of what is suddenly dumped on us.

Oh, well…future generations of writers may find “Rudderless” valuable as an example of how not to structure a screenplay.

| Robert W. Butler